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...I don't really understand what the "screw" looks like. IIRC, part of the lower platforms get wet from river spray and the boardwalks there have algae growing on it... Any help here would be appreciated!

To my mind, the Screw is literally that, a giant Archimedes screw that rotates to move water up and down the height of the falls at an angle, carrying boats with it.

Have done some calculations with the help of ChatGPT 40, and it suggests a screw a 25ft radius, at an angle of 30 degrees, would protrude about 693ft from the cliff, resulting in an 800ft journey for a boat into a lock at the top. Using locks on both sides, you can load the screw with boats coming up and down at the same time.

Mind you, I have my own inconsistency between Punks in a Powder Keg, and Guns & Gear, as to where exactly is the Gunworks situated? One describes it as being in the heart of the town, the other 50 miles away. If it's 50 miles away, how does the Maw of Rovagug actually help protect the city when the mana wastes are in the other direction. Wondering if that some of the complications come from the City being called Alkenstar and the area of the City-state being called the same.

Wish Paizo hadn't done this, Abomination Vaults has some glorious RP opportunities, where you can negotiate with various factions of residents, plan quests and side quests within the dungeon and interact back with the town.

The ARPG format removes all of this and replaces it with a tedious, dull mouse clicking exercise.

Ok, strip out the world-specific term "Nazi", and replace with with "Demon". It's effectively the comparison being made here, by assuming that anyone with the label "nazi" attached to them is effectively an inherently evil being.

Does helping demons automatically cause you to change alignments? The answer is it depends entirely on the act or acts commited, and how willingly they went along with it.

For example, if the scenario the GM puts forward absolutely requires that you do this, then you'd be an ass to make them change alignments as a result. If it's optional to work with demons, but in doing so you get a better result for others, then you might come off feeling a bit grubby, but would keep your alignment, if by working with them and things get worse for others, then you are looking at sliding from good alignments but not from neutral.

If on the other hand, you not only work with them, but whole-heartedly embrace their ideology and methodology, then that's the time an alignment change comes in.

Alignment is supposed to be how your actions are percieved by an all powerful cosmic judge (in the form of the GM), weighing both intent and deed against a scale of good, evil, law and chaos). It's a very different moralistic worldview to normal society, which tends to embrace moral relativism rahter than Pathfinder's moral absolutism.

As a final aside, Paladins would be at risk of falling for all except the first scenario, as the paladin code is very strict about working with evil beings.

I'd add the Int modifier once at the end, as it's effectively precision damage due to a greater skill with the weapon, not an inherent property granted to the weapon itself.

The triple strength flask of fiery acid should inflict 3d6 acid + 3d6 fire + Int damage (pick type), subtracting the appropriate resistance from each damage type once, for a cost of 790gp each time, with the extra 200gp upfront costs.

Not the most cost effective source of damage out there, compared to say a scroll of fireball (450gp for caster level 6).

Don't see why you'd think anything like that, Martial Versatility allows you to have a Combat Feat (e.g. Weapon Focus), and instead of it just applying to a single weapon (short sword), it applies to that weapon's group (Blades, Light).

Deadly Dealer isn't a valid target for Martial Versatility, because it's not a combat feat. Even if it were, cards aren't listed in any weapons group, so it's effect would be meaningless, or at an extreme interpretation, the Thrown Weapon group to which darts belong.

Do the maths in advance is the best advice, get it to the point where you have a single number to add onto the die results, and roll your damage and attacks at the same time.

If you have multiple conditions which may apply, build up a grid, listing weapons / iterative attacks in one direction, and conditions in the other. Conditional things like Furious Focus and Vital Strike can be applied to the appropriate attack

Also get your GM into the habit to telling you the target numbers for things as much as possible. There's no point hiding the AC of a villain, it only slows down combat, same for DR and DC's of most skills checks.

I'd take the results with a pinch of salt, that there isn't enough data to provide a breakdown and that "popular" related terms don't return a result due to lack of data suggests that the sampling size just isn't large enough to actually draw any serious conclusions.

In fact, I suspect given that Greece gets maximum rankings on the term "Pathfinder Roleplaying Game", that there's something seriously skewed with the statistical analysis, and that the weighting to produce is favouring a specific trend point.

Continually cackling is a millstone around your neck, you've lost half your action for the round, can't take any full round actions and generally must devote your standard action to keeping up with your target (that 30ft range is really short!)

On the upside, it's not just one hex that it extends, but all eligable hexes in range, though anyone affected just has to move back at least 40ft and then they're protected from cackle.

All in all, if one player wants to be entirely supporting, well that's their choice!

The Permanency spell doesn't have Shillelagh listed, but given it's a Level 1 spell it would be a fair extrapolation to list it at 2,500gp and require a caster level 9th, in line with other Level 1 spells.

However, whether or not you can do this is entirely down to the GM's discretion, though given Magic Fang and Greater Magic Fang are allowed, it seems reasonable.

Isn't there some creatures that chase after time travellers ?

Yes there is, the Hounds of Tindalos from the Cthulhu mythos. Not much of a threat to someone who is happy to throw around Wish spells though.

With regards to the OP, you decided to remove a character from the game because you didn't want the Wish spell to work. That's pretty bad GM'ing and if I were the player, I'd be pissed at you. How about you have him snap back to the present having over-reached the power of what a Wish can accomplish and let them deal with the consequences of being too late instead.

I'd agree with the judgement call that it doesn't retroactively change into lethal, only further non-lethal damage would convert.

I'd be more worried about an interpretation that would say that your total for bleeding out should be based on your ability score including damage.

Just for the sake of arguement, would GM's allow a Ring of True Strike that let you cast the spell an infinite number of times a day?

Given you'd have to spend an action to gain the buff, and it only applied to the first attack each time, would it be a viable item and how would you price it?

Personally, I'd rather scale the huge piles of loot back. Conan was always happy with a pouch of gold or jewels to finance some tavern crawling.

There's a great setting for the Savage Worlds game system called Beasts and Barbarians which actually has a wealth mechanic for that built in. Effectively at the end of an adventure, your loot is lost bar a small-wish amount and you randomly generate how you spent it (such as wine, women, getting robbed, lavish lifestyle, rare relic or similar).

Pathfinder could adopt something similar, consider the idea that magic items don't have a GP value, but instead a Magic Point value equal to it's current GP cost, adventurers accumulate magic points by disenchanting magic items, or by making donations to the gods by sacrifcing rare goods (1gp = 1mp).

Suddenly adventurers aren't displacing the economy, except by taking very large chunks of gold out of it. The magic item wealth of a community might represent the items which collectively they've horded and earnt together.

I restore luck to my dice with the addition of small weights :)

If you're a Life Necromancer varient Wizard, you could theoretically use both Heighten Metamagic and the Magical Lineage trait to heighten the Cantrip to level 1 and but still have it occupy a Level 0 slot.

The theory is that since the spell counts as a Level 1 spell, the Life Necromancer ability to healing targets of 1hp per use of a targeted spell should kick in.

It's more than little controversial though, and open to interpretation as to whether Heighten metamagic ever works with Magical Lineage.

There's one still left to qualify for the Arcane Side, without a boon sheet, and that's the Elven alternative racial trait, Dreamspeaker, but requires that you have a Charisma 15+ to qualify, so you're delayed a level as you'd really have to take Sorcerer rather than Wizard to make best use of your statistics.

This is a weakness of the d20 system, it's too mechanically detailed but doesn't provide any framework for heroic deeds. I'd like to see a future suppliment that covers things like this, topping tables and similar that doesn't rely on a heavy skill investment.

In thw above example, a Reflex save might have worked, but then what? There's not a lot in the rules to cover a positional advantage, at best you might count as flanking but you're still stuck hammering away at the HP

Standard adventuring equipment in a sack in your hands, drop it at the start of a fight and the majority of the time, the DM won't bother worrying about it.

4-6 Lemures with the Advanced Template, 2 extra HD, and supported by a couple of Bearded Devils, overseen by a Barbed devil would make for a good challenging encounter

What about a Bard with Amateur Gunslinger, possibly adding the Bucaneer archetype? Sure you'll have to put a couple of points into Wis, but it'll save dropping any levels at all.

Living in the UK, we generally use both imperial and metric in every day use, imperial tends to be used for bigger measurements, and metric for smaller ones.

For example, we measure distance and speed in miles / miles per hour, height generally in feet and weight in stones, pounds and ounces. We measure food in litres and kilograms, and medicines as well (which is why you can often spot a health professional as they'll know their weight and height in kilograms / meters as you have to use them to convert medicines safely)

Would Pathfinder's appeal benefit from a metric system? Maybe in the translated versions, but most English speaking countries have inherited the UK's measurement conventions.

As for the inherent benefits of the metric system, scientifically they're superior as the definitions are inter-related and built from the ground up, but I'll be damned if I give up my pint for a half-litre...

For high level play also consider the scope of threats that the PC's face. It should never just be a BBEG, but a BBEG and his entire organisation. Setup plans which don't require the presence of the BBEG to succeed such as the deployment of magical devices all over a city which raise the dead, so that even "victory" over the BBEG might still cause the PC's to fail if they get too focused.

Another point to consider is time constraints, whilst in theory a Wizard can take down anything with the right spells, if denied a chance to replenish spells then they're much more limited. Martial characters thrive in time sensitive situations, and as long as HP don't run out then they can keep doing their thing as effectively as they could at the start of the adventuring day.

So basically playing Pathfinder Beginners Box with an expanded level range? Sure, I could easily play in a game like this and have fun, after all, it's the personality that makes my character mine, not the wazzy power combination that I thought up or stole from the forums (I'm looking at you Heightened Disrupt Undead casting Life Wizard)

Sure, I enjoy the mechanical interplay, working out interesting and powerful combinations to use, but it's not until I've got the persona down, do I start to actually enjoy the game. I could play a level 1 Commoner and providing the challenges weren't requiring impossible, or near impossible dice rolls to succeed, it's all good.

Looking at your original example, a Paladin who follows the tenets of his or her order, would not be a sociopath because good behaviour requires compassion, something a sociopath by definition cannot have.

However, there is potential scope for anti-social personality disorder as a characteristic, effectively definined as playing "Lawful Stupid".

With poor impulse control (Detect Evil, ping? SMITE!), reckless disregard for the safety of others (ignore the hostages, Evil must die!), and a lack of remorse (It was Iomodae's will that they must perish), you could fit the definition of ASPD without completely walking away from the concept of Lawful Good.

However, that's an extremely fine line to walk, because it won't take too much for a reckless, impuslive act to damn the paladin, and you'd have to make damn sure you were playing with an understanding group, trying this in PFS is a surefire way to be labelled a douche player.

As a corollary, if your Reach is 35ft, what distances are eligible for attack?

Is it 30ft and 35ft (following on from the distance gap normally available to Large creatures), or is it 15 to 35ft, based on the closest distance that a Large creature with a Reach weapon can normally attack?

You could do this easily in Excel, put a row chart on one monitor and the entry sheet on the other, and have sections for both the max HP and cumulative damage.

Heck, if you're doing that an IF formula can pick a standard description based on % HP left and creature type and display that as text on the chart.

E.g. 50% gone on a humanoid might be "Bleeding from several cuts" whilst on an ooze might be "It's started loosing coheasion, several sections seem to have diffculty moving"

I once had a player go into a 20 minute rant at me for daring to roll a single Perception check for him.

So yeah, some players don't like this....

Honestly, I've not found a better application than Hero Lab and haven't needed to buy anything more than the Core book and the class books (APG, UC and UM)

Yeah it's a bit more expensive but it's so much easier than the others that I've used

Doesn't sound like it's very well written at all, maybe the best interpretation would be to treat it as a ranged weapon with 54 pieces of ammo, action to draw the deck, no action to ready the ammunition and you enchant the ammo and the deck holder seperately as with any other ranged weapon.

At least that way what you get is a low damage, short ranged weapon that works as well as a bow for repeat attacks. Hardly game breaking.

Lamontius wrote:

A Forlorn Elven wizard who is utterly obsessed with keeping his companions from ever dying, so he delves deeply into necromancy because he can't bear to lose anyone else...ever...again...

I really like this one

I suggest you pick up a copy of the novel, Johannes Cabal Necromancer, it'll give you some ideas of how to play this kind of character

All these suggestions and no one thinks of uaing a runner being sent out to find them?

There's only one resource in Pathfinder to manage, gold pieces, these little tokens of worth are the limit on every additional resource that PC's can acquire.

For example, yes you can spend gold effeciently on wands of CLW, but do that a couple of times and you've given up your suit of full plate or +1 agile breastplate. Keep spending out and soon you'll find your weapons and armour are falling behind the curve and you're getting wounded more often.

The effect is subtle compared to the OP's desired "survival horror" trope, where things which are required are enforced strictly. That said, if you want to give that kind of feel, strictly enforce encumbrance rules and track food and water, they weigh a lot and will take up valuable room which could otherwise be spent hauling treasure and potions.

Well, sounds a lot like this idea. That said, there are an awfully large number of unattended, non-magical rocks and even Cold Iron rocks apparently :)

Dazylar wrote:

Hope you don't use any PHP code

PHP? What kind of backwards abomination do you think our website is?!

The kind that acts as a living advertisment for Dilbert strips?

... That's pretty much my point for people who complain that "we need more traditional APs" or "Pathfinder is becoming too genre inclusive". This AP isn't the end of traditional modules. Rather, this AP is a bone thrown to those of us that want something more. Something different and exciting that sparks the imagination and isn't tied down to the fantasy tropes we see in every video game, book, and movie. ...

I think that one of my points wasn't communicated very well, it's not that I'm arguing directly against a sci-fantasy setting or adventure, it's that I'm not convinced it needs to exist in the exact same world as the rest of the variant fantasy settings.

As for arguing well we can avoid this if we don't like it, well no, we can't if you play in the PFS. Eventually giant robots, or laser swords or death rays will make an appearance at a PFS table and for me, personally that is an issue for stretching my disbelief. Yes mechanically it's likely to be no different to magical or alchemical items but the trappings and appearance of it will just not feel right sitting alongside a traditional fantasy warrior or wizard.

You can totally play anti-social without needing to be anti-party / anti-adventure. My current PFS character is, well ruthlessly practical, he sees a goal, and persues it as much as a True Neutral alignment allows. On occasion that causes a little strife, when he decides that 1 prisioner is sufficient and doesn't heal the other bleeding out, or decides to take a "shortcut" with a conversation and pull out an Intimidate check.

The important thing though is that he still listens to the others he adventures with, if the group is pushing a decision that he doesn't personally agree with, he'll go "fine, sod it, on your heads be it", and goes along with the idea, though often with a little ill grace, but definitely not sabotaging the process.

The anti-social oracle needs to buck up his ideas and ensure that despire everything else in his backstory, there's a reason why he associates with the others in the party and also makes sure he supports the group decisions when they chose not to listen to him. It's the difference between being a grumpy old man and being an utter bastard. The former still gets invited along, whilst the latter just gets dumped by the side of the road.

Also, one final point, speak to the player of the Oracle, and ask him what his niche in the party is, if he wants to play backstop to everyone else's weaknesses, that's fine, but if he wants for no one else to need to do anything then that needs to be stamped out fast.

With the annoucement of the Iron Gods Adventure Path it's begining to feel to me that Paizo are trying to cram every single possible type of campaign world into a single setting. Whilst it's not uncommon for a fantasy world to include several sterotypes such as Norse, Ancient Egypt and Oriental sections, the idea of throwing in aliens (which as an aside is supiciously similar to the Pinnacle Savage Worlds setting Evernight), feels like a step too far.

I am interested to see if others have a similar impressions based on the little information released so far. Should Paizo have kept back these ideas for a seperate campaign world?

Them choosing not to play was just that, their choice, though it sounds like a heated argument to reach that decision. One compromise would have been to ask them to print out any and all relevant sections from the PRD that apply to their characters.

It allows you to have the relevant rules to hand and puts the onus on the players, but still lets them have some flexability.

I'm not convinced that Improved Uncanny Dodge is worth it, particularly when you're looking at a decent initative score by being a TWF, though a dip between a Fighter/Barbarian is interesting, or a Fighter/Rogue to focus on support melee, flanking to gain further sneak attack damage.

Feat-Wise, a Ftr/Barb focusing on criticals can be absolutely devastating, but really needs an Elven Curve Blade rather than a double-sword to pull ahead.

Sticking with the TWF theme then, a Ftr/Rog gives you the sneak attack extra damage, which you want to pile on the attack opportunities. Consider boosting your Int to 13, to get Combat Expertise and Imp. Trip, and Greater Trip. Knock them off their feet for a +4 to hit due to the AC penalty, and Greater Trip ensures that you don't lose any attacks (since you get an AoO as they go down), plus picking up Improved Dirty trick to blind your enemies as well. Lore Warden archetype will help with this. If you're focusing on critical feats as well,

One side note, Double-slice is rarely worth the feat investment, it generally generates +2 damage for a fighter up until the highest levels (since it does nothing to change the effects of Power Attack), consider Weapon Focus instead, as you want to maximise the number of hits you can achieve.

If you're willing to try a new system, Savage Worlds has a new setting out shortly called East Texas University (ETU). It's a Call of Cthluhu-esque horror crossed with a Scooby Doo vibe of young adults investigating mysteries.

The best part is there's no linking between combat rewards / progression and combat, so there's no need to fight enemies, you can trick them, talk them around or even just run away.

If the setting itself doesn't intrigue you, it is a generic system and supports most, if not all, settin types and has plenty of different publishers supporting it.

There's two popular methods that I've seen used

1) Roll-play introduction: Treat it as a boardgame, you give them a set of statistics, a board, some miniatures and a goal and walk them through the rules step by step. When looking at statistics, consider what's the least you can provide, and at key points ask "what would you like to do", and define the statistics based on the response. For example, if you describe a goblin moving to attack, and the response is "cast a spell", then the chances are high that they want to play a caster. If it's "charrrrggeeeee", then a fighter or barbarian is in order.

2) Roleplay introduction: Set aside the rules, ask them to think of a person, and how that person would behave, and then walk them through some basic roleplay scenes such as a conversation in a tavern with the barkeep, a tense negotiation with the king, or a social event with a bit of a murder-mystery thrown in. Add in a bare handful of mechanics to keep some of the tension but rules-lite is the approach.

Once you've done one, make sure you do the other soon after and you'll have covered most of the basics. The last thing should be looking at making a solid, rules-legal character, particularly with Pathfinder et al, where many of your choices are dependant on your class.

A straight upgrade to turn your Longspear into a +1 Longspear will help, in the long run you can then upgrade it further into a +1 Corrosive or Spell-Storing Longspear for extra damage.

Since you're a reach cleric, nothing wrong with stacking Enlarge person on top of a reach weapon and pushing for a 10-15' threat zone. If they do manage to close, 5ft step back and wait for those attacks of opportunity to come in as they close again.

Other than that, scrolls are a good investment and if you don't have one already, a Wand of Cure Light Wounds saves you having to worry about converting your healing spells too often.

One final item which can help out, is either extra-dimensional storage such as a Hewards Handy Haversack, or a set of Muleback cords if you can spare the cloak slot. The former lets you carry a *lot* of spare scrolls, potions and alchemical items to help give you options in combat which aren't "stab them with the spear", the latter just lets you carry a lot more stuff than you'd otherwise be able to lift.

Why not pick up something from this section?

They're all a reasonable size and weight for what they represent and not earth-shatteringly expensive unless you're looking to model a dragon's horde.

Theoretically, a trait which swaps -2 Strength for -2 Constituion is balanced, at least as far as Ultimate Races is concerned, because it's still within the "Greater Paragon" racial attribute distribution type.

The alternative would be a Goblin-type race with "Flexible", which grants +2 to two different abilities, such as +2 Dexterity and +2 Wisdom

That said, if you're honestly that concerned about the penalty, consider asking your GM to let you use a custom race design.

For me it would be the following triad

- Summoner: The eidelon can mostly handle the role of skills-monkey, taking on things like Disable Device, ungodly levels of Stealth and Perception, and Survival. The summoner himself can then use summon monster ability during combat to soak up additional damage, and provide buff spells. UMD as a class skill, and Charisma as your casting stat also help you act as secondary healer via Wand of CLW

- Paladin: The consumate self-healing tank, able to soak up large amounts of damage, and if geared correctly, also dish out decent damage as well. The focus on Charisma also means you can often dedicate one of your limited skills points towards Diplomacy, and archetypes such as Hospitaliar take care of in-combat healing as well, with a Wand of CLW to back things up.

- Wizard: The ultimate generalist, able to tailor their spell selections to handle most odd-ball situations. Couple that with a high Intellgence, and focus on various Knowledge skills, you can take on most challenges to face a party. My personal recomendation would be a focus on Conjuration magics, to back up the summoner with even more disposable toys, but a Transmuter or Enchanter also offer solid bonuses. If you favour ultra-cheesy, a Life Necromancy sub-school practioner, with Heighten spell and Magical Knack (Disrupt Undead), potentially offers unlimited healing, 1hp at a time.

In-combat healing is often appreciated, particularly at critical junctures, however make sure you also have something to do by stacking up those Summoning spells so as to benefit from the action economy of doing so as much as possible.

The fact that Summon Monster / Summon Natures Ally, shares the same school as Cure Light Wounds et al, is also a benefit, particularly when you consider the fact that you can use Cure spells to harm Undead :)

GM says: Don't worry!
GM means: Do worry!

GM says: Well there's always Plan B
GM means: Pick plan B, plan A will work far too well and your characters look like they'll survive with all 4 limbs still attached.

GM says: Has everyone read the handouts I emailed round?
GM means: No one ever reads the handouts, but now I totally get to screw you over for not doing so, bwhahahaha?

How about a group of good-aligned elven warriors, dedicated to watching over and protecting the secret of the artifact. Given many party's tendancy to attack first, and ask questions via Speak with Dead later, it could cause some interesting fallout to manage.

For extra GM laughs, have each warrior who falls to the hands of the PC, utter a dying curse which if they fail the Will save, compels them to take over the guardian's role.

You might want to correct your relation expression, you've used the correct fractions on the chart, by expressing them as fractions (or multiple) of a GP.

1000cp = 100sp = 10gp = 1pp

You're also missing a rather key point on money, even in the real world, a penny coin costs MORE than 1p to produce, and may even be worth more than 1 penny if you were to buy the base metals. The same applies to other coins, they can be worth more or less than the actual metal they're made from. Their value stems from the fact that they're a coin, marked in a special way, that people agree has a "fixed" value within their society.

So no, a copper piece in the game doesn't have to weigh 4lbs, it has to simply be the correct size, weight and marked in a way that people recognise it to be a copper piece.

I gave my players a magic item that, on occasion, can reveal the structure of a place. Thus if I use a dungeon flip mat, their characters are seeing the same thing as the players. It challenges them to work out how their characters would interpret the dungeon layout.

Sometimes the item doesn't work (i.e. I don't have a flip mat, or am using dungeon tiles), or there are hidden rooms that manifest as they travel.